Meron, Israel – The Safed Police arrested eight ultra-Orthodox men from Jerusalem early Tuesday on suspicion of rioting near Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s tomb on Mount Meron in the Upper Galilee.
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Safed Police Superintendent Amos Shimoni said, “The worshippers came, broke windows and hurled item. The eight men were arrested for rioting in protest of changes taking place on the site as part of the place’s regularization.
“We view any cases of strife and violence at the grave site with extreme severity, in this case as well,” he said.
The police were expected to ask the Safed Magistrate’s Court to extend the eight men’s remand.
Several months ago, the High Court decided to establish an administration which would supervise Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s grave site, headed by Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz.
The tomb attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The Lag B’Omer celebration sees a record-high number of visitors, with more than half a million people arriving from Israel and abroad.
Last September, groups of worshippers clashed near the grave over the control of the site. In one case, two people were moderately injured in a squabble over the placing of peddling stands in the area.
Following the high number of brawls, Northern District Police Commander Major-General Shimon Koren decided about half a year ago to station regular forces at the grave site to break up any riots.
The Badatz Bets Din of Jerusalem have posters all over asking everybody to go and protest the desecration of HaTanah Reb Shimon Bar Yochie.
How do we expect moshiach to come when we continue to fight? Didn’t we learn our lesson from the Mumbai Kedoshim? How much more tzoros do we have to suffer?
The Kever is being redone, to bring it up to standards that are befitting a kever such as RASHBI, the committee is putting millions of dollars into this project. The group of people who are “upset” are upset for the reason of $$$$$, diffrent groups have been making $$$$ of the site, and now it will be taken away from them i.e concessions stands, simcha halls, etc… Things they had no right to have there in the first place.
Anyone who has been to the Rashbi kever can tell you the place looks disgusting. The committee will bring up the kever to standards that you seeat the Western Wall today. ( do es anyone remeber what the Western Wall used to look like!)
The same people yelling to stop the improvements would be yelling ‘roitzchim’ if chas veshalom a child or elderly person were crushed there one day because the gov’t never got the situation under control.
The first responsibility of any gov’t is keeping its citizens safe.
I don’t understand. If the is a legitimate issue, then why are only the Eidah Hachredis asking for people to protest? Why aren’t other Rabbonimim, the Agudah, the Mizrachi, or Shas asking for people to protest? And if this isn’t a legitimate issue, then why aren’t we told why it isn’t a legitimate issue? In other words; is this a political fight or a fight for the Torah? Can anyone please tell me?
becouse agudah and mizrachi take mony from the goverment so they have to make belive they dont see anything